Players put so much effort & grind in acquiring the current "top" items, witch renders almost useless after the current patch/expansion has passed.

The alternative to this is no progression at all so you can keep the stuff that you 'put so much effort & grind in acquiring'. That would mean in this case that end game is just that: the end of the game. Your suggestion of something like paragon levels is really more effort and grind to no discernible end. I sort of agree with the feeling you have in one sense but until someone dreams up an alternative reward schema everything I can think of is actually worse than vanity/leisure items and toys. Better to play the game to enjoy the game and worry less about reward. Gear as reward is really not a reward: it's the only way to get to see what happens next. That's not exactly a reward but a gate.

you need to be able to replace your armour every so often. Try playing a game where your stuff gets upgraded a certain points in the game. It reduces what could be exciting to something one step above boring.

I think mounts from boses, titles and mounts from glory mounts should be only obtainable when the content is current. So with out of curve achievements only. YOu can do the achievements later, but dont expect rewards for that. That would be enough imo.

The alternative to this is no progression at all so you can keep the stuff that you 'put so much effort & grind in acquiring'. That would mean in this case that end game is just that: the end of the game. Your suggestion of something like paragon levels is really more effort and grind to no discernible end. I sort of agree with the feeling you have in one sense but until someone dreams up an alternative reward schema everything I can think of is actually worse than vanity/leisure items and toys. Better to play the game to enjoy the game and worry less about reward. Gear as reward is really not a reward: it's the only way to get to see what happens next. That's not exactly a reward but a gate.

I have to disagree with you here, there are countless of ways to keep the current gear still relevant, some already implemented.
As for the paragon levels, that was not my idea, just my 5 cents on the suggestion made by another poster in this thread.
And gear as a reward is cool, but it gets dull when you realize that when you get new gear it will be replaced by more powerful gear = endless grind until the gear is so good/powerful we need another stat squish.

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Originally Posted by endersblade

You basically just said, "There's nothing to do in this game but the game." If you don't like what WoW has to offer, gtfo. There are tons of things to do in this game, especially compared to many other P2P MMOs. There are many ways to progress your characters besides raiding and PvP. Progression doesn't always mean 'making better', it can mean making 'more complete'. Find patterns you don't have. Pets. Mounts. Farm transmog gear. Do scenarios and aim for Gold. Do achievements. Get all of your non-combat pets to 25. Catch all rares in the wild. Fuck dude, the list goes on. What the hell else are you wanting?

Usefulness and uselessness are choices. Something you may find useless, someone else may strive for. You may hate raiding and love PvP, someone else maybe be the opposite. I personally never understood people who spend countless hours burning themselves out trying to do heroic raids, only to have to replace their hard-earned epics with quest greens and new dungeon blues within a few months when the next expansion hits. But again, that's just me. They obviously feel it's worth the time and the effort, more power to them.

You are mistaken, this is not what i wrote, plz read again and make a relevant post thank you!

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Originally Posted by Paperfox

you need to be able to replace your armour every so often. Try playing a game where your stuff gets upgraded a certain points in the game. It reduces what could be exciting to something one step above boring.

WoW is a game where your gear "gets upgraded to a certain point", i don't see your point here?

Are you hoping for a lateral progression path tied to the amount of content you've completed?

If the advantages to doing everything in game weren't cosmetic, players would feel obligated to complete everything in order to be competitive. They would be wrong to feel like it was needed of course, but that would do little to remove that feeling.

The problem with keeping all dungeons current content, is that with loot from any location being interchangeable the reward becomes more obviously cosmetic which would irritate people. Even though in the current system gear is mostly a gating mechanism and the actual power of the gear relative to the content you're trying stays similar, rendering the gear grind cosmetic, many people would balk at removing that illusion of progression. With current catch-up mechanics though, I can't imagine what kind of person won't have realized this.

The lateral progression would, therefore, need to be something that wasn't a direct power to activity progression, and also not obviously cosmetic. One option would be to increase the amount of roles a person could perform based off of the content they've completed. This would require going back to an earlier WoW model when classes roles were more specific; a change I don't think people would go for.

Another alternative would be making more gear viable for the player as they completed content. If you gained updates that made it so the gear grind wouldn't have to go on so long by opening up different weapon and armor types you could have some significant lateral progression. The new Garrisons system also allows for some interesting lateral progression. They now have the ability to reward you with rewards that aren't immediate and are chunked out over months or years. Adding things like a set bonus for collecting a group of cohorts from various different raids and dungeons would give Blizzard the opportunity to reward long time play with rewards that stay meaningful.

Anyway, I like the idea, but I've gotten to the math part of thinking about it, and since I'm not getting paid to think about it; I think I'll stop there.

tldr: progression in the form of making more advantages beneficial to the player specifically rather than players in general. Also, garrison employee set bonuses.

You basically just said, "There's nothing to do in this game but the game." If you don't like what WoW has to offer, gtfo.

So..he cannot make any kind of suggestion, or state he feels it needs something more?

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I kind of feel like it would be nice to advance your character in other ways, but I have absolutely no idea how it should be done. For example, my shaman that has been around for 4 years is no better or more tailored more to my style than a shaman that has been 90 for a week. I would really like if there was some kind of personal progress to be made that would make your character feel a little more suitable to you. But, I don't ask or expect that cos like I said, atm I have no idea how that could be implemented successfully. Something like Skyrim's talent system may be something, but then that would upset the balance of the game in terms of group pve/pvp.

Are you hoping for a lateral progression path tied to the amount of content you've completed?

If the advantages to doing everything in game weren't cosmetic, players would feel obligated to complete everything in order to be competitive. They would be wrong to feel like it was needed of course, but that would do little to remove that feeling.

The problem with keeping all dungeons current content, is that with loot from any location being interchangeable the reward becomes more obviously cosmetic which would irritate people. Even though in the current system gear is mostly a gating mechanism and the actual power of the gear relative to the content you're trying stays similar, rendering the gear grind cosmetic, many people would balk at removing that illusion of progression. With current catch-up mechanics though, I can't imagine what kind of person won't have realized this.

The lateral progression would, therefore, need to be something that wasn't a direct power to activity progression, and also not obviously cosmetic. One option would be to increase the amount of roles a person could perform based off of the content they've completed. This would require going back to an earlier WoW model when classes roles were more specific; a change I don't think people would go for.

Another alternative would be making more gear viable for the player as they completed content. If you gained updates that made it so the gear grind wouldn't have to go on so long by opening up different weapon and armor types you could have some significant lateral progression. The new Garrisons system also allows for some interesting lateral progression. They now have the ability to reward you with rewards that aren't immediate and are chunked out over months or years. Adding things like a set bonus for collecting a group of cohorts from various different raids and dungeons would give Blizzard the opportunity to reward long time play with rewards that stay meaningful.

Anyway, I like the idea, but I've gotten to the math part of thinking about it, and since I'm not getting paid to think about it; I think I'll stop there.

tldr: progression in the form of making more advantages beneficial to the player specifically rather than players in general. Also, garrison employee set bonuses.

Good post! Although i have different opinions about some things you said.

The warlock green fire quest and reward from completing it is a good example of something that makes your character feel progress and uniqueness and is totally not mandatory. Imo this is a good example of where the direction should be taken towards rewards for putting in effort, but there should be tons more of it with more variation to choose from.

Also, it could be directly power related, but designed so that there are different "paths" to choose from, think tertiary stats but in a different system where you cant get them all = choose what best fits your play style.

Quick idea here, they could make weapons & armor that you upgrade with new "pieces", enchants and what have you, making it a stronger version of it and at the same time keeping the item you worked so hard to get.
I bet there are many cool ideas and as mentioned before, the game may or may not get better from them, but as stated before that is for the pros to decide (designers).

You don't know that she didn't, and it doesn't matter what she said, her parents are "RESPONSIBLE" for her, and as "RESPONSIBLE" parents they protected their child, fuck the little boy or your feelings.

This is just my opinion, but i think it is sad that a game like WoW offers almost none progression after you completed main quests, raids, professions, (you get the point), in other words the state MoP is in now.
The only real thing we can keep as a PERMANENT REWARD are the VANITY ITEMS, except a few, (pets, mounts, items, SoO Looms, transmog), meaby gold for some, and this makes me a bit sad that a huge game like WoW has nothing more to offer, and for many these "things" are useless!.

Players put so much effort & grind in acquiring the current "top" items, witch renders almost useless after the current patch/expansion has passed.
Come on Blizz, VANITY ITEMS, srsly?

Well, for someone who has cleared everything on heroic and has done all available achievements - yeah, I guess there is barely any progression to be done until the next expansion.

That said, during the times of vanilla and BC, you didn't even have a fraction of the keepsakes that you can keep nowadays. You threw away those pesky pets because all they took up was your scarce storage space. You didn't keep most of your old gear, regardless of how cool it looked, because you weren't wearing it anyway, and mogging wasn't in the game.

Today, you keep more memories stored away in your bank than ever before, and you actually use your beautiful old gear for mogging. You collect pets and mounts in numbers that seemed unimaginable back then.

WoW has turned into a game where you actually HAVE permanent rewards as opposed to during BC where all that you got was maybe a title or two if you were lucky enough to get your attunement questlines done.

you need to be able to replace your armour every so often. Try playing a game where your stuff gets upgraded a certain points in the game. It reduces what could be exciting to something one step above boring.

Alternatively the game has to be exciting on its own merits instead of relying on a skinner box to get its customers hooked. Scary thought, huh; an MMO actually being fun.

If you are particularly bold, you could use a Shiny Ditto. Do keep in mind though, this will infuriate your opponents due to Ditto's beauty. Please do not use Shiny Ditto. You have been warned.

The most fun in WoW for me,when there was a progression. Not waiting for new raid all the time - brought by a patch, but how it was done in vanila/tbc...more raids available and we actualy had an incencitive to farm older dungeons to get better gear/ attunements so we could go for new one(yea,i expect somebody to tell me how they were bad and i wear rose tinted glasses). I just dont like the way it is now.....farm the raid till u just cant handle it anymore, quit for a few weeks until next pathch arrives and repeat

All you've done all thread is say "something needs to change" and when asked what, your reply is "idk I'm not a game designer" - I don't quite get it. Like, at all. Did you consider you're just bored of the game?

This is just my opinion, but i think it is sad that a game like WoW offers almost none progression after you completed main quests, raids, professions, (you get the point), in other words the state MoP is in now.
The only real thing we can keep as a PERMANENT REWARD are the VANITY ITEMS, except a few, (pets, mounts, items, SoO Looms, transmog), meaby gold for some, and this makes me a bit sad that a huge game like WoW has nothing more to offer, and for many these "things" are useless!.

Players put so much effort & grind in acquiring the current "top" items, witch renders almost useless after the current patch/expansion has passed.
Come on Blizz, VANITY ITEMS, srsly?

I do not really understand the complaint. All games, movies, books etc eventually ends. And then a new chapter begins. If they items are autmatically upgraded for the next patch, then a major part of the game, acquiring new and better items, is removed. This will have a major impact in the game. So keeping the items "current" is not viable for Wow. For some players, acquiring better items IS progression.

The problem is seeing gear as the point to raiding, and not the mechanism in which you advance further. Gear is a means to an ends for me, and that ends is seeing the end of the raid.

I imagine if I raided for gear, raiding would be an exercise in frustrating disappointment every week. Aside from that, there's plenty of vanity and mog items I've acquired that can show off my 'progress' through raiding and other means.

I do not really understand the complaint. All games, movies, books etc eventually ends. And then a new chapter begins. If they items are autmatically upgraded for the next patch, then a major part of the game, acquiring new and better items, is removed. This will have a major impact in the game. So keeping the items "current" is not viable for Wow. For some players, acquiring better items IS progression.

First, this is not a complaint, its an opinion. Second, as many other posters, you seem to not understand the topic of the thread, plz read again.
No one said items should be upgraded automatically except you.

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Originally Posted by Worgoblin

Agreed. WoW needs a long term progression system. This is my absolute #1 complaint about the current state of the game.

Something I really liked was in Warhammer (now dead, except for P-servers), the Renown system. It offered almost endless progression even after you reached max lvl/had the best gear.

This guy gets it, amen!

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Originally Posted by MerinPally

All you've done all thread is say "something needs to change" and when asked what, your reply is "idk I'm not a game designer" - I don't quite get it. Like, at all. Did you consider you're just bored of the game?

Is that all i have done? Hmm, maybe your glasses are foggy, plz read the thread again? And what does me considering if i'm bored with the game have to do with this?
You are talking gibberish here, nothing more.